


Two By Two

by AnnetheCatDetective



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Drift Bond, Drift Compatibility, Jaeger Academy, Loneliness, Long-Distance Friendship, Longing, Multi, Mutual Pining, Non-Chronological, The Drift (Pacific Rim), everything leads up to Newt and Hermann's Drift basically, non-romantic jealousy, romanticizing the drift
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-18 04:14:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9367520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: Newt and Hermann have each discounted the possibility of personally Drifting with anyone. Newt and Hermann both find themselves longing for the experience in a way they didn't expect to.(Chapter one: in which Newt hangs out with Tendo and his friends at the Academy, and just feels intensely jealous over Drift partnerships)





	1. Newt 1

Newt doesn’t have a roommate, which he’s very cool with. He has a little suite to himself, bed and bath, and it’s a little bit ridiculous that he was given accommodations for the wrong kind of disability, but they don’t really make special rooms for what he does have, and anyway, having a roommate would have just been hell for both of them, partly due to his brain junk. So maybe in a way it’s just right. 

 

Since he doesn’t have to live with anyone, it takes him a little longer to really get to know anybody. He brings up the rear whenever he participates in physical drills, and being a loudmouth genius asshole doesn’t endear him to his classmates when there are lectures and pen-and-paper exams…

 

Well, not that he tries to be an asshole, but it’s easier to call himself one and pretend it’s all part of his deal, than to admit he sucks at interacting with people and is just failing. So he embraces being off-putting as armor, when he needs to, and he writes to Hermann, who has already been through the academy, and who is sympathetic, who has advice sometimes, but never pushes it at him unwanted. 

 

After his first week, though, Newt thinks he’s made friends with Tendo– Tendo is in the J-Tech track, which has more overlap with K-Sci. Out of necessity, maybe, since Newt is the only person there who’s properly K-Sci. Most people trying out to be pilots will wind up doing something else, anyway– either backup careers in J-Tech or doing things to keep the facilities afloat. Giving combat training to the Drift Compatible, working sanitation, food service… whatever. Newt knows he should just be happy he’s indispensable, but he can’t help a stab of jealousy when the trials for Drift Compatibility start. After the preliminary solo tests, he’d been quietly told he wouldn’t be matched, and then told it shouldn’t be a problem anyway, since he hadn’t wanted to pilot, just to study the kaiju. 

 

The odds of his finding a compatible partner, outside of some sort of Universal Drifter, he’d been told, were slim. And anyone with that ability wouldn’t waste it just to give him the experience– Newt isn’t even sure there would be an experience, without that personal element, without finding someone whose brain was configured to sing with yours.

 

Sure, he was never going to be a pilot, but it’s still a bitter pill, and it feels bitterer still when he joins Tendo at lunch and there are already other people sitting there, talking about the trials.

 

Not that he can be surprised, because Tendo is popular, and there’s no reason he should forego other company just because Newt doesn’t have other friends and can’t seem to make them, and anyway, it’s just two people Newt doesn’t really know. Though he’s not sure if that makes it better or worse– in a crowd, he’s just one more voice, after all, and there’s no chance of his accidentally dominating things and then driving everyone away with his weird. In a group of four, he could do that easily. 

 

Worse, Tendo’s two friends are clearly looking forward to being matched.

 

“I feel like we should be studying for this, man.” One of them says– shorter than his friend, but a little taller than Tendo, which means Newt feels significantly shorter than the both of them.

 

“Man, you can’t study to be Drift Compatible, it doesn’t work that way.” His friend shakes his head.

 

They have the same accent, and Newt wonders if they came together, if they’d banked on being compatible all along, if that brought them. Or maybe they were from different towns, or even neighboring states, and latched onto each other in Anchorage because of similar backgrounds. They’re both wearing PPDC sweats, so it’s not like he could assess their personal style, but judging by hair alone, he’s not surprised to see them hanging out with Tendo. They’ve all three got some kind of cool, swept up-and-back thing going on, with Tendo at the most rockabilly end of the spectrum.

 

“You don’t know how it works. You don’t know any more than I do.”

 

“Okay, smart guy, how would you study to be Drift Compatible?”

 

“Trust falls.”

 

The tallest guy shakes his head emphatically. “I weigh too much. Either you’d drop me, or I’d be dropping you, straight to the ground.”

 

“It wouldn’t be trust falls.” Tendo breaks in, struggling not to laugh. “It’s not just about how much you trust someone. What you– what you’ve gotta do is, you– and you should probably hold hands for this.”

 

There’s a ‘no’ and an ‘okay’, and a brief sidebar on how holding brains is more intimate than holding hands, and Newt pushes his jealousy down and tries to focus on committing the highlights of the scene to memory, for his nightly letter to Hermann. They’d switched to digital means of communication completely when Hermann had gone to the Academy before him, but with their schedules and differing time zones, they rarely got in more than one reply a day. Still, even on the most draining days, Newt always makes sure to recount the best and worst, even if just briefly, before he falls asleep, and his first act every morning is to look for Hermann’s reply.

 

“You should be holding hands.” Tendo repeats, getting everyone’s attention back, Newt’s included. “And you just sit together and, like… stare at each other, until you’re breathing in sync. You can meditate or you can just think about whatever, but you just have to breathe together. And I think the touching’s important.”

 

“Yeah, that’s what you’ll tell the next cute young thing to ask you if you ever thought about testing your luck with a Drift partner.” One of the two laughs, and Tendo reaches across the table to shove at his shoulder, and then they all three seem to notice at once that Tendo hasn’t introduced Newt to his other friends, a slight sheepishly rectified. 

 

Rhys is taller and tanner, with good cheekbones and a weak chin, and the sleeves of his sweatshirt pushed up towards his elbows, and Newt finds him too intimidating to find him handsome, exactly– more for his height than anything, since so far he hadn’t displayed any obnoxious jockishness. Charles is shorter, and paler, and not Newt’s type, but not bad-looking– the type he could see himself going for if he found out the guy was a musician or something cool, but not just on the basis of his looks. Mostly, when he’s introduced, he thinks that his father and uncle have a cousin named Charles, who he’d only me once, when he was a little kid, who lived a ways away, and who his uncle seemed to like, and he finds himself suddenly homesick.

 

He wants to ask the others what they miss, wants to hear that it’s normal to miss home, but he remembers that Tendo is from San Francisco, and so he doesn’t ask, he just turns his thoughts back to Hermann. Thoughts of Hermann are almost always a comfort. He tunes out of the conversation, only to be yanked back in, after a span of time he isn’t sure of, so that Charles can ask him a question.

 

“Do you ever watch food shows? There’s nothing unmanly about food shows, right?”

 

“I used to be really into the original Iron Chef, like… in junior high. My dad watches a lot of that stuff, I mostly don’t?” He shrugs. 

 

“But it’s not unmanly!”

 

“It’s knives and fire, dude.”

 

“There are so many channels you could miss before you even got to the food one.”

 

“Well there’s two.”

 

“There’s two?” Rhys goggles. 

 

“Yeah, Food and Cooking. There’s a lot of food shows. There’s one where Kix Brooks just goes around eating meat.”

 

This bit of trivia wins Rhys over, and he leans in. “Kix Brooks… just goes around eating meat? Like… just meat?”

 

“Yeah, just meat, all over the place.”

 

“I would love to go around eating meat for a living.”

 

“It’s a good backup plan if this saving the world thing doesn’t pan out.” Charles nods.

 

“Well, no, because if saving the world didn’t pan out, we’d be dead…”

 

“If this saving the world thing pans out too well.” Charles corrects himself. “And we save the world so hard we’re out of a job. We could be those ex-Jaeger pilots who drive around eating meat.”

 

Tendo snickers, and when he tries to hide it in his coffee cup, it only echoes. Newt feels a sudden pulse of something strong and awful, and has to excuse himself. 

 

“You may not have to study for Drift trials, but I have to study the lab protocol manual.” He says, even though he doesn’t. He’s read it, and there’s not much to differ from any lab safety protocol he’s ever learned. But no one questions it, and he slips back to his room.

 

He writes Hermann an early letter, pouring everything into it, all the envy and the loneliness, and the longing. He deletes it without sending.


	2. Hermann 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermann's time at the academy-- much of it spent pining.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Takes place before chapter one.

They’re expanding the premises, expecting more. Hermann is hopeful, to a degree. More Jaegers, more incoming cadets, more facilities around the edges of the ocean… it’s no guarantee, but it’s something. There are enough people who believe in the program, enough to put money in. People who believe in the work he’s done so far, and the work he hopes to do. The work they’ll all do.

 

He’s standing shoulder to shoulder with Sasha, Aleksis to the other side, blocking the wind, the three of them among the small group to have ventured out into the snow to look at the construction.

 

He likes the couple, quite a lot. Despite their intimidating appearance, they’re warm people. They show it in their own way, but he likes that about them. They aren’t showy with emotions, not prone to the sort of displays that would make Hermann uncomfortable, but he would never doubt for a moment the depth of their feelings for each other or for the fast friends they’ve made since coming to the academy. The way they feel about the world, to be so willing to put their own lives on the line for it, with no hesitation and no room for regret… it’s admirable. Their stoicism puts him at ease, their generosity of spirit is something he is still adjusting to, and their quiet, wicked sense of humor makes him eager for any time spent in their company.

 

He doesn’t care for their music, but he doesn’t mind putting up with it in his downtime. He has his own room to retreat to if it ever threatens to give him a headache, and it’s not that he doesn’t understand the appeal just because it doesn’t appeal to him. He doesn’t agree with Aleksis’ assertion that it’s good music to study to, he can’t imagine being able to concentrate with that kind of a racket, but for dancing to he can understand why they like it.

 

“It’s hot.” A voice to Hermann’s other side pulls his attention from the spectacle of the hangar going up. Further off to his left there’s a murmur of agreement, and he turns to see a couple of other cadets, as bundled up as he is in heavy parkas.

 

To his right, Sasha laughs. Her own coat is open, neither she nor Aleksis has a hat, and while her coat has a hood, it’s down. Only Hermann has his up, and he envies the group around him their ability to adjust to the biting cold. He supposes Sasha and Aleksis might be used to frigid winters. At the far left of the little group, someone says something, soft and indistinct. 

 

“I thought I might never feel hot again, when I first got here.” The man to Hermann’s immediate left chuckles, and Aleksis nods. “But if I took anything off, I’m pretty sure I’d freeze…”

 

“Is not so bad, no.” Aleksis says. “Might as well be springtime, with so much sun.”

 

Hermann knows him well enough to know this is his idea of a joke, an exaggeration. He pretends in front of others to have lived his entire life on some frozen tundra, despite having lived most of it in Moscow. Hermann can’t quite get that– coming from a smaller town himself, he doesn’t find any amusement in being mistaken for a hick. He supposes eventually he’ll have to tell Newton he’s from a sleepy little spot in Bavaria, that he’d only moved to Berlin for university, but he likes that they have one city in common between them and that Newt doesn’t have his perceptions colored..

 

Maybe it’s vain of him, and maybe it’s ridiculous, but Newt makes him feel ridiculous sometimes. Newt, who’s so brilliant, whose life has been so unfettered in ways that Hermann is jealous of, dizzied by… The fact that they are friends of a sort makes him feel lightheaded sometimes. He’s proud of himself when he thinks that Newt considers him an intellectual peer– Newt, recognized since his childhood as a genius, accomplished in his main field already, a polymath… that Newt is impressed by Hermann’s work never fails to make him feel good. So good that no one else’s recognition matters half as much. Newt’s esteem has made him bolder, and happier. 

 

He wishes they were together at the Jaeger academy. Even if it would mean things like disclosing the extent of his disability, and his less-than-metropolitan hometown, his less-than-impeccable personal habits… the thought of rooming together fills his mind frequently. Watching the pilots-in-training spar while studying for the few exams that even existed for future K-Science personnel, expounding on theories together…

 

It would make the place feel less lonely. He can’t blame the friends he has made for that, but Sasha and Aleksis are a unit unto themselves, first and foremost. There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that they’ll be in control of a Jaeger before long, that they’ll zip through compatibility trials and pass the physical training with flying colors besides. And at the end of the day, they have each other in a way that… well, Hermann envies it. 

 

He can’t pretend that his feelings for Newt are the same. They’ve grown close through their letters, true, but it’s not a marriage. He doesn’t even know where Newt’s proclivities lie when it comes to romance. Perhaps their friendship would never go that way, and perhaps in the flesh, Hermann wouldn’t find himself physically attracted to the man he’s nursed a mental crush on over the course of their correspondence. 

 

The only thing he can really know is that at the end of the day, when Sasha and Aleksis have each other, Hermann has no one. And it’s always Newt his thoughts turn to, no matter what sort of companionship he finds himself wanting.


	3. Newt 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newt pines too hard to hide.

Newt winds up joining Tendo, to watch as a pair of rangers-in-training step into the trial conn pod. The rest of the prospective rangers are gathered close, but Newt and Tendo are farther back, far enough that Newt can hear the encouraging cheers from the group, but not anything that the two actually testing the pod out say, as they settle into the physical space.

 

"They have nothing to be nervous about." Tendo shakes his head, reacting to some quirk of body language that Newt hasn't deciphered. Whether it's just one of those things everyone but Newt seems to get, or if it's something Tendo sees because he's friends with the pair, Newt couldn't say, but he'd like to imagine it's Tendo's proficiency rather than his own deficiency.

 

From their distance, even with his glasses, Newt can only really make out so much. Shorter figure on the left, taller on the right, a small J-Tech team helping to adjust everything to fit them... then the squid caps go on, everyone takes a step back, a collective breath is held...

 

The connection holds, steady and stable, enough that they can go ahead and run full fight simulation. Most eyes move from the pod to the monitors, to watch the simulated fight. Newt barely even bothers-- the simulations don't have much variety. If it was a video game, he'd see himself getting bored with it ten minutes in, but he doubts the PPDC wants to take the precious time Newt could be spending with chunks of real live dead kaiju to ask him to collaborate on a better one. He's not a programmer, and his creature design expertise would be wasted on these people, he's sure.

 

"Hey, why so melancholy?" Tendo nudges him. "A match this close is some pretty damn good news, you know how hard it is to get real compatibility."

 

"Yeah." Newt bristles. "I do."

 

"And they're kicking ass at the simulation."

 

"Simulations mean fuck all and you know it. Not nearly enough data to work from to make a worthwhile teaching tool."

 

"Who pissed in your corn flakes today?"

 

"If they really wanted a good fight simulator, they'd put a competent programmer who doesn't feel constrained by a laundry list of moves they've already seen in a room with a freaking kaiju expert capable of extrapolation, because, like, no two have been the same so far, so why shouldn't we be thinking ahead and predicting all the different things we might come up against, but whatever, like... I could plug in a copy of Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee and it would be better than this." He continues, because the last thing he really wants to do is admit to being... what, being bummed out? Because he couldn't hop into the conn pod himself and meld minds with somebody and actually try the lousy simulator out for himself?

 

Even that would be easier than the full truth, that he misses a man he's never really met, so badly it hurts, that they missed each other by such a short span of time, came so close to being there together at the academy.

 

Hermann could have programmed a better simulator. He worked coding the Jaegers, before his own academy stint, he would have been able to handle the programming end just fine, and Newt could have designed the kaiju, explained their physical capabilities, the size range, the natural weapons they would have at their disposals... Together, they could have crafted something useful, something that would be different every time a pair stepped into the conn pod to test themselves.

 

His gaze drifts over the group of rangers-in-training, cheering their classmates on or waiting for their own turns. They'd begun in neat lines, but the lines had quickly broken up to allow them to crowd in for the best views... since then, the shape of the group has changed again, spreading out into pairs, and Newt feels his jealousy spike again. He can't call it a pang when he's been nursing it steadily since his own disastrous pre-trial test. It's a steady canker gnawing at him, one that sometimes throbs.

 

A pair at one corner of the group draws off slightly. He recognizes only one half of the duo, the half that was friends with Tendo, an Englishman named Freddy who's built like a lightweight boxer, who was prone to jokes and loud laughter and sometimes to petty arguments for his own amusement. Newt doesn't know his partner, because only Charles and Rhys and Freddy have really ever hung around with Tendo while Newt has been present.

 

He watches the two lean close, whisper, shove at each other's shoulders, and embrace. He can't hear the laughter, but he's sure it's there. What is it like to be on the same wavelength with someone like that, to be able to reach for them when you needed human contact, and to trust they would be there to answer that need? Since leaving home, Newt never feels like he's touched enough. He misses being held, firm and steady, when his emotions vibrate in him and feel on the verge of spilling out into something bad. He misses the hug that would greet him every Friday night without fail, coming home just in time for the week's big dinner, weariness from long hours of lab work evaporating with the promise of good food and the support and understanding that came with it. He misses the way his uncle would jostle him or muss with his hair when working out in his garage together, as if he'd never grown up-- granted, at age ten he'd understood the mechanical side of Illia's inventions better than most of the man's colleagues, so he never feels a sting at being treated like a kid, when it's just them. He misses going to shows, slamming into other reckless dancers, screaming and laughing and throwing arms about shoulders and feeling the music together...

 

There are no opportunities for that here, and Tendo is cool and all-- he touches the people he's talking to often enough, and Newt is one of those often enough. He needs more than other people, he thinks, that's the problem. And he has no one who understands him, no one who reaches for him on instinct. He doesn't think it's exactly right to call himself touch-starved, it's that he feels like he's gone from feasting when the mood struck him to going onto strict rations.

 

It would be different with Hermann.

 

He's sure of that fact. He's not aware that he'd spoken those words out loud, until Tendo asks him who 'Hermann' is.

 

"Forget it--" Newt turns away, but Tendo catches his arm, and he can't help himself, he melts back into that small touch a little. "Hermann's a friend. We-- I wanted to go into the academy last year, with him, but I couldn't leave work. It just would have been different, that's all. You could celebrate all this stuff with your, your ranger buddies, and we could... we could skip it. Or work on a better simulation. Or-- I mean, it's not important. It's not-- I'm not ungrateful or whatever, that you hang out with me. They just look like a lot more fun down there, that's all."

 

"Is he J-Tech, or--?"

 

"K-Sci." Newt shakes his head. "But he started out working on the Jaegers."

 

"Wait-- oh, brother, are you telling me you're buddies with Hermann _Gottlieb_?" Awe touches Tendo's voice. "Worked on, shit-- The way we tech guys have been hearing about it, there wouldn't be any Jaegers without him."

 

Newt relaxes into a grin, nodding. "Right? He doesn't put it that way, but I mean... Yeah. We've been-- We're friends, but like... online, you know, science friends. Both going into the academy, I was hoping we'd, like... meet up for real and-- I dunno. I thought... It's not like I thought we'd be piloting a Jaeger together or anything, I just thought... it would be cool if we were both here together."

 

"Well, hang in there, you're bound to make it happen one of these days. Just because you weren't at the academy together, you're still both gonna be working in K-Sci."

 

"Yeah. It's just..."

 

"Weird, coming here and not knowing anyone?"

 

"Yeah. I guess. I, um... I mostly-- I started at MIT before I was old enough to move out of my dad's house, so... once I moved from Berlin to Boston, I pretty much never traveled more than ten minutes from Boston, at least not without somebody I knew along."

 

Tendo nods. "I get homesickness."

 

"Yeah?" Newt looks up. "Where's home?"

 

He gets the sense it was the wrong question fairly quickly, at least, with the way Tendo seems to tighten up all over, his face and the set of his shoulders and his hands.

 

"It isn't. Was San Francisco."

 

"Shit, dude, I'm sorry--"

 

"You don't have to be. You didn't know." He shrugs, his smile sad. "I get homesickness. It's hardest when you don't know anybody... but I guess I've always been good at getting to know people."

 

"I've never been." Newt admits. "The only friends I really had in Boston, I mean... it took like a year knowing a couple of these guys before we even spoke to each other at all, and if we weren't interested in the same stuff, we still wouldn't... It's not like I'm an introvert, like... I talk to people at parties and concerts and stuff, when I go. But-- it's... There's people you can hang out with because you're strangers and you both dig the same music, but you-- you never really... That's all it is. And there's people you talk to because they seem cool and you feel cool, and you put your foot in your mouth and it doesn't work out. And not so many people I just click with."

 

"You seem fine to me."

 

"Yeah, but I'm just piggybacking on how good you are at this stuff, and how you let it roll off your back when I suck at it."

 

"You must seem fine to Gottlieb, though." Tendo nudges at him, his smile a little more solid.

 

"Yeah." Newt smiles back, though he can't really meet Tendo's eyes. It feels too uncomfortable to try, like his own must give too much away somehow, and just thinking about eye contact makes the back of his neck prickle a little bit. "Yeah, Hermann is definitely-- everything's different with Hermann. Everything works."

 

There's a loud cheer down below, and Newt's shoulders relax when Tendo looks away from him. The pair practicing in the conn pod have taken out the simulated kaiju, the whole ranger class is celebrating even this small promise of success, even as they jockey for position to be the next two in the pod.

 

"I've gotta go get back to work." Newt turns away, and he knows he's about the worst liar there is, but Tendo doesn't question him, and anyway, he certainly could get more work done...

 

Instead, he writes to Hermann about the tests he'd watched, and this time, he sends it.


	4. Hermann 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Going back to Hermann's time at the academy again...

It feels like pure masochism compelling him to accept Sasha's invitation. As much as he likes her and Aleksis both, he doesn't fit in with their group of rangers-in-training. The Weis and the Hansens especially, they came to the program sure that they would be able to tap into familial bonds and shared experiences to Drift, as much as the Kaidanovskys had banked on being compatible as a couple. To go with them to watch the physical training drills would only make him feel more out of place and alone.

 

Still, he'd agreed, and found himself sitting on the sidelines with Sasha, while Aleksis sparred with all three Wei triplets at once. It's an amazing thing to watch-- their fighting styles are so different, the Wei's speed and numbers going up against Aleksis' sheer size and stamina, all four of them gleefully enjoying the chance for a match that isn't about compatibility trials, but about honing technique, about fighting someone-- and someday, of course, some _thing_ \-- that didn't think the way that you did about combat. Opening themselves up to new ways of looking at a fight, expecting the unexpected, handling a foe you couldn't read so immediately.

 

Joining Sasha in cheering the match on, Hermann could almost forget the melancholy that had plagued him on the way to the kwoon. Even if he doesn't belong with anyone, he has friends, and can spare a little time from his own studies and safety drills. Then the Weis sit, and Aleksis calls two more people up.

 

This isn't another match he plans on taking part of-- this is Aleksis covering for the academy's fightmaster during a staff meeting, tossing practice weapons to a pair of cadets that Hermann had thought were J-Tech. At least, he recognizes the taller, darker-skinned young man as being a communications expert, not a combatant. He knows him a little, not much. Knows the other person less still. Short, with a soft, solid figure and a fuzzy undercut, almost-pretty features and a name that struck Hermann as perfectly androgynous. He assumes J-Tech because they don't look like a ranger, and he knows they aren't in K-Sci, and he watches the two.

 

One salutes his partner, the other salutes the space they'll fight in, and at Hermann's shoulder, Sasha makes a little noise like this is interesting.

 

"This one, this one trained before the academy." She gestures, when he turns to her. "This is practice from some other school of fighting."

 

"Ah." He nods. "I hadn't thought about that... about anyone training to fight before this. Oh-- I know you and Aleksis studied boxing, and I suppose I knew most rangers had a little experience with something or other or they wouldn't be here to become rangers... but I never thought about... I don't know. Ordinary people learning to fight."

 

The words come out wrong, and Hermann blushes, but Sasha just laughs and nods in return.

 

"So you have never learned to fight?" She teases him.

 

"Never thought I needed to. The cane puts most people off, and when it doesn't, it's a handy bludgeon." He chuckles.

 

The two sparring partners circle each other. Hermann's gaze drifts back to them as they feint, as they dart in or retreat. The practice weapons aren't to either's strong suit, or both are too timid when it comes to actual combat, no matter what sort of forms they've run through as exercise in the past. It looks as if they aren't even trying to hit each other.

 

He's not sure if he notices, when something changes. He notices when Sasha leans forward, her forearms braced on her knees, her brow knit in concentration. He notices the hush that falls over the other small groups gathering to watch or to wait their turn. But he doesn't see a turning point where the fight goes from being tentative and toothless to being real. They still don't land a hit, but eventually even Hermann can see the determination and the intent to. When they dive into a clash, the wooden practice weapons make a loud, echoing crack through the kwoon, and beneath that there's a sound, breathless and pleased, a voice that isn't quite wrapped around words by the time it reaches Hermann's ear.

 

They only speak when they're near to each other, practically nose to nose, in the moment before they push back against each other as one and spring apart. Each time it happens there is a flurry of near-silent action, of misses that whiff! through the air, fumbled steps that almost become a point for the opponent, recoveries made just in time. But then, surely, another all-out attack, bodies close, brief whispers exchanged.

 

"Will they be recruited to pilot now?" Hermann asks at last, his own voice barely audible.

 

Sasha shrugs. "Who can say? Likelihood of Drift is not everything... not just anyone can pilot. Many will still be most valuable doing what they have trained for. It will take many people to run single Jaeger, you know this. There must be munitions, maintenance crew, must be someone back at base watching monitors, calling shots... and to keep the base running, things must be kept clean, everyone must be fed, there must be medical teams, chain of command, trainers who keep pilots in top shape... and scientists." She ruffles his hair. "Hermann... to fight a kaiju, to be in a Jaeger... is not enough to have a partner. You must be ready to fight. You must be ready to fight with your whole life on the line. You must be able to do this with no regrets. People will think it is like some magic thing, but this is not the case, you know that... PPDC wants as many compatible pilots as they can get, but Drift Compatibility is not what makes the ranger. Not the only thing."

 

"No... but it is important."

 

"For me. For Aleksis. For those sets of brothers. For anyone who would be a ranger. But not for you... you helped to make this possible. And you will help to continue the fight, and to end it. You cannot do everything."

 

"I don't want to do everything." He protests. "I just-- having a medical exemption... it's different. I know I would be doing the same thing without it, it doesn't change anything for me... but it changes how I feel."

 

She puts an arm around his shoulder, silent, and he lets the silence stretch on. He's said enough, he doesn't want to go on. He doesn't want to tell her that he feels limited, ashamed. He'd thought he'd outgrown that, he's certainly had long enough to, but seeing 'medical exemption' on his paperwork makes the feelings come creeping back.

 

He hasn't told Newt about any of it. He hasn't known when it would be appropriate to disclose his disability at all. He doesn't even know what to call their relationship, how could he know that? Is Newt a colleague, a friend? Is what they have something more? He doesn't dare ask, of course, especially about Newt's orientation and whether the pull between them is all in Hermann's head, but if he can't ask, he's not sure how he can know, and without a label for the relationship they have, it's hard to gauge which personal details are appropriate and when. If he talks about it in his next letter, apropos of nothing, will Newt think he is being too intimate, too free? But if he goes on not saying anything and they should meet at a conference in the future, will Newt be upset not to have been told what to expect?

 

The sparring match peters out, a tie, and the next pair goes up to do training drills. The fightmaster returns to the kwoon, Aleksis returns to Sasha. They fall so easily into the little bubble that always seems to form around them when they're together, and Hermann once again finds himself alone in a crowded room.


	5. Newt 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Newt learns to feel a little bit less alone, even if it's not what he really wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Moving past their time at the academy, but before they meet in the flesh. Newt hating working under a predecessor of Pentecost's, as he's an active pilot at this time.

Newt had had high hopes when he left the academy for his first posting at one of the Shatterdomes cropping up around the Pacific's coastlines.

 

Hermann. Hermann had been his highest hope. From their letters, he knows where Hermann is, the information isn't classified the way so much of Hermann's work is, but instead of joining him, Newt is in Hong Kong.

 

He can't really complain-- being shipped to Hong Kong immediately upon his academy graduation was the only way he'd ever be able to get his hands on one of the remaining chunks of Reckoner. And after that, well, he imagines they'll send him to the next spot, instead of trying to ship the remains to him. So far, the kaiju haven't exactly been stable in death. Moving a sample is too risky, moving a scientist not so much.

 

The problem with Hong Kong is that the Marshal there doesn't really respect Newt much. Respect had been another one of those high hopes he'd started out with, and it's something he thinks he's earned, he has the career of a man maybe twice his age to prop himself up with, he has an unfailing work ethic, but he just can't seem to prove himself to the old guy in charge.

 

When he can't get anywhere through the normal channels, he aims lower, taking his theories about kaiju to the kwoon and the fightmaster instead. The Marshal didn't need to know about it-- as long as the rangers got the information they needed to fight the kaiju, that was what mattered.

  
He feels out of place, shuffling into a room crowded with people, air ringing with the sounds of practicing going on. He doesn't actually know anyone here, and why would they listen to him? A host of old teen movies flash before his eyes, and in every single one of them, he's the nerd, and everyone else around him is a jock. He wouldn't even know who in the room was the fightmaster, or if they were present... what was he thinking?

 

He knows the Wei triplets by reputation, and that's the closest to knowing anyone in the room he can claim. Hermann had mentioned them sometimes in the letter, and had especially written about the first stable three-way Drift, and having his coding updated to allow for a three-man Jaeger, how excited he was about it even if he would be too focused on the breach and his prediction model to do any of the coding for the special Jaeger himself. When Newt arrived in Hong Kong, once he'd had his first crack at Reckoner, he'd rushed to the Jaeger bay so that he could take pictures of Crimson Typhoon to send to Hermann, and he'd grinned and blushed like some dumb thirteen year old at how pleased Hermann's reply had sounded.

 

Newt takes his sheaf of printouts, his notes and theories, and sidles around the edge of the room, to sit next to a man in sunglasses and a leather jacket. Sure, it was possible he was a jerk jock, but it was also possible he was a cool rebel, especially since he wasn't paying attention to the sparring match, but seemed to be eyeing up the row of rangers and crew members to the left. Looking for a likely opponent?

 

"Hey. Uh. You a pilot?" Newt asks, wincing when his voice comes out sounding high and nervous and scratchy.

 

The man turns, but not to look at Newt, just towards the sparring partners on the mat. "Reserve. You're... J-Tech?"

 

"K-Sci." He coughs and shuffles his paper, glancing between the fight and the man next to him. Reserve... he could work with that. He could bring up his stuff, he could try and make an ally who'd know who to actually pass the tips onto. "Just, uh... just working on pinpointing the tactical, tactical weaknesses in the kaiju. Coming up with, with... things that would be more effective against 'em. I mean, I'm glad 'punching' has been working out for everybody, but the kaiju are different every time one comes, and we gotta, we gotta keep up, you know?"

 

A nod.

 

"So... what's 'reserve', like... you're waiting for a partner to come up through the academy, so you can Drift?"

 

"According to the tests they ran, my partner and I were eighty percent compatible for a Drift. If either Po or Shen were injured and Crimson Typhoon was unable to take on a kaiju attack alone, we would be able to jump into Horizon Brave to back them up."

 

Newt stares. Eighty percent compatible, and he was a reserve? Were they just waiting for another Jaeger to be built?

 

"That's... that's a good compatibility rating."

 

"It's the other twenty percent that's a problem." The man shrugs. "Without Drifting, it's impossible to know what would happen in a Jaeger. One of the strong possibilities is that my partner would spend the entire time we were connected experiencing a disability he has no lifetime of context for. It's also possible the effects would outlast the Drift. We don't know enough about it yet, it's too... new. Too different, depending on who is plugged into it."

 

Newt's jaw drops, and he finds himself nodding. "Yeah. Yeah, they-- they, uh, gave me a medical deferral. For Drift stuff. Said it could lead to some crossed wires, made a connection hard to, yeah."

 

"Well, there is always some kind of work to do. Likely we'll never find out. I said I wanted to be measured anyway, just to add to the data. And with an eighty percent compatibility, well... my partner said we'd take the chance if it came down to that, and he'd let LOCCENT and I handle it and just be there to bear the load."

 

"Do you ever want to?" Newt asks softly. Something under his breastbone aches. He wants to be told he's not wrong-- he needs to be. "Just to know what it's like, what all the rest get to try? I mean... isn't it-- natural, to want to connect to somebody?"

 

"You don't need a Drift to connect to someone. There's always... there's a _way_. There are people that life puts in your path. You never need a neural bridge to connect you to them. You talk to people. You share a meal with someone, you share a faith, you fall in love, you do a million other things... if you have to Drift, then I don't mean it's not valid or intense... If I ever have to, then I will. But it's not the only way to connect with somebody."

 

"Well, it is for me, 'cause I suck at everything else." Newt snorts.

 

"We're talking right now."

 

"Yeah. Yay for us, disability squad. But that's different. That's... that's because you seem to be really good at not brushing me off for being obnoxious and asking, in retrospect, seriously personal questions that have nothing to do with what I came in here for, but that's what everyone else does, okay? And all I've got going for me is I'm smart and I'm useful, but that's only as good as the rank of the person who'll listen to me for, like, five minutes. And not to presume, but it's probably not that high, unless you're secretly the fightmaster and this is like a kung fu movie where the last guy you suspect is the old master, so... so I want something I don't get to have, like... I want someone to listen to me and crawl into my brain and get me, and like me when it's over, and that's, like... that doesn't happen to me."

 

"I know the fightmaster, if that helps." The man says, with an amused quirk to his lips, still turned towards the mat as a new set of sparring partners begins. "I'll let him know you're in my 'squad', then you'll have an in."

 

Newt laughs, relieved. It's not the relief he'd wanted to feel, the reassurance that he was craving something that everyone craved, at least everyone told they couldn't or shouldn't have it. But he's being offered an introduction instead of being brushed off, and after the runaround he'd been getting from the Marshal, it's something. He holds out his printouts.

 

"Yeah. I've compiled some information on effectively taking out kaiju based on shared characteristics with those who've-- uh, I mean..." He withdraws the papers, when they aren't taken from him, self-conscious all over again. "I thought it would be useful to someone."

 

"It sounds like it would be." The other man stands, cupping his hands around his mouth. "SIFU!"

 

That brings the fightmaster over, at least, and Newt squares his shoulders and tries not to look intimidated, because 'Sifu' sounds like a title for some wiry little old master, and not for a giant human bear of a man, one who looks him over like he's super aware of how easily he could break the tiny, nearsighted scientist standing in front of him.

 

"You don't need to shout. Do you?" He lifts an eyebrow, looks between the man in the leather jacket and Newt.

 

Newt makes a mental note to ask him about where he got the jacket, because it kicks ass, and he could use a new one. One that actually fits him since he put on a little bulk since being a scrawny university student.

 

"Suppose not. There's some intelligence coming up from K-Sci for your rangers."

 

"They're the Marshal's rangers before they're mine... should this go to the top?"

 

"It's about training." Newt says quickly. The last thing he wants is to have to admit that the Marshal here wouldn't see him. "So it's more important to give it to the people doing the training, right? How to look for weaknesses?"

 

"I'd prefer to go through the proper chain of command-- I don't want my head on the chopping block for going above my pay grade."

 

"Ah, come on." Leather Jacket nudges an elbow in the general direction of Human Bear. "I'll spar over it. I win, you take the risk? I think it's worth it, Doctor--"

 

"Newt. Just Newt."

 

"Newt." Leather Jacket smiles. "Newt and I are part of the same squad."

 

Human Bear sizes Newt up, skeptical and amused, but he lets it drop, giving a nod and a sigh. "I have no idea what that means, but anyone who can beat me in my own domain deserves whatever favor I can hand out."

 

Newt feels a thrill of something, mentally composing his letter to Hermann as he settles in to watch, the sparring partners who had been out clearing the mat for their master. He grabs two staffs, shouting 'heads up' and tossing one towards the raised hand of his opponent, and then the dance starts.

 

On the one hand, Newt feels a little guilty, not sure if this is something that his new ally is going to feel hard in the morning, not knowing if he has any particular health issues to worry about, but giddy over the fact that without going over Newt's data himself, he trusts it this much, enough to help him be heard. Someone who understands... someone who had to push against his own medical exemption to be tested for compatibility, that thought has Newt's stomach flip-flopping. He's not alone. Even if they view the whole subject differently, he's not alone.

 

He'd have liked to have been stationed with Hermann, and only the promise of Reckoner had made Hong Kong seem like an acceptable alternative to joining him, but now he's glad. It means so much just to know he's not the only one, to have someone else in the PPDC he could talk to about things like accommodations, about a lifetime of workarounds, about the struggle to look 'normal' in public and the toll it wound up taking when you did, how to feel secure in being your authentic self when someone was always going to hate you just for being born...

 

He doesn't put those things into his letter to Hermann, even mentally. So far, Hermann has not been put off by him. So far, Hermann has _liked_ him. Maybe there's a time and a place to spill out all his weird for Hermann to look at, but he doesn't think this is it.

 

The fight is beautiful to watch, but not so beautiful that Newt forgets what's at stake, and he leaps to his feet with a triumphant yell when his champion lands a hit and the fightmaster declares the match in his favor. Maybe he called it early when he could have evened out the score, but he hadn't been going easy, either, or it hadn't looked that way, and Newt is grinning widely when he delivers his data, wider still when the fightmaster calls the assembled rangers around to talk about strategy with them.

 

"Dude, that was... like... wicked awesome. Seriously." He grins up at Leather Jacket-- or, at the side of the man's head, anyway. "Uh-- any time you wanna drop by the biology lab, like, I'll let the rest of the science team know you're cool. I'm probably only in Hong Kong until we finish up with Reckoner or another kaiju hits somewhere else, but... like, yeah. I'd be happy to show you the lab."

 

"I would be happy to hear all about it. Newt... you don't need the Drift to connect to someone. But you never know. Even with an exemption... we never know what the future has in store. Don't give up on trying to connect with people in the meantime."

 

"I won't." He nods. After all... he does have Hermann to write to.

**Author's Note:**

> Wound up naming the cadet OCs after characters in a piece of original fiction I'm working on, for lack of better names. Their part feels really choppy to me because when I first wrote it, they kind of took over the whole entire thing and they needed to be cut back so that Newt could hold the spotlight.
> 
> The TV show about going around eating meat is real, and is one of many. I watch way too much food TV myself and it bled into it.


End file.
